Stretching Before Exercising Weakens Muscles

[Bob Hubbard]

Stretching Before Exercising Weakens Muscles 2008-11-07 09:40

Posted by kdawson on Friday November 07, @09:40AM
from the everything-you-know-is-wrong dept.

Khemisty writes "Back in grade school you were probably taught the importance of warm-up exercises, and it's likely you've continued with pretty much the same routine ever since. Science, however, has moved on. Researchers now believe that some of the more entrenched elements of many athletes' warm-up regimens are not only a waste of time but are actually bad for you. The old presumption that holding a stretch for 20 to 30 seconds — known as static stretching — primes muscles for a workout is dead wrong. It actually weakens them. In a recent study conducted at the University of Nevada, athletes generated less force from their leg muscles after static stretching than they did after not stretching at all. Other studies have found that this stretching decreases muscle strength by as much as 30 percent. Also, stretching one leg's muscles can reduce strength in the other leg as well, probably because the central nervous system rebels against the movements."
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[exile]

Note, however, that dynamic stretching seems to be exempt from this caveat. As one might expect, based on Kurz' work. He himself had anticipated this result by several years, as I recall—I read something by him way back when that made a similar point.